Playing with art & language: some personal memories

As a container of information in text form, the book is designed in a linear fashion to move the reader along line by line. Many artists seek to break this convention and direct the reader/viewer into a more exploratory realm, as is true of the work of Jan Davis. This article leads the reader (in a somewhat linear sense) through Davis seven-volume artist book simply titled SOLOMON  a journey developed out of the artists concern with the operation of space in visual imagery and her interest in writing.

This brief article offers insight into a form of writing or drawing that Henri Michaux has termed asemic and which is the subject of interest for Tim Gaze, editor of Asemic magazine, published in Adelaide. As stated by Michaux Most people make asemic writing at some time, possibly when testing a new pen. They tend to have no fixed meaning. Their meaning is open. To explore the nature of asemic writing visit http://www. typisart.com.

Concrete Poetry is both a form and an attitude to poetry that emphasises the visual and material elements of letters and thus words in relation to their meaning. 'Words and Things' is a project Patrick Jones set out to produce to represent concrete poetry and text-based art in Australia. A project that took him four years and that has attempted to dissolve the traditional form boundaries between art and poetry. The material considerations of 'Words and Things', both environmental and aesthetic, lead the reader into a work that is more like a sequence of short films than a standard book. Contributors to the book included Richard Tipping, Aleks Danko, Alex Selenitsch, Peter Tyndall, Geoffrey Baxter, Peter OMara, Jeff Stewart and Marie Sierra.

James Stuart explores the spatial and interactive aspects of text-based artworks, leaping off the page and into the textual practices of Peter Lyssiotis and Franz Ehmann. Lyssiotis is a writer and photomedia/collage artist and creates books that generally combine his own artworks and writings in collaborations with others. Among the most impressive of his projects is the recent A Gardener at Midnight: Journey into the Holy Lands, developed as part of a Creative Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria in 2003 which is of particular focus in this text. Brisbane-based/Australian-born Ehmann is concerned with the physical reading environment of the gallery and in turn deploys a multi-disciplinary approach to the physical space and temporal duration of his exhibitions. Via the works of these two practitioners Staurt here wishes to posit the very real sense of bodily and not just intellectual interaction with language that reading entails.

In his work, Chinese artist Jin Feng maintains a continuing interest in 'problem people'. Concerned with socio-philosophical issues, he is testing the limits of tolerance. He is also interested in challenging public prejudices against the too easily condemned. Tamara Winikoff interviews Jin Feng about his sculptural piece 'We Want A Rest By Standing Up'  depicting two infamous figures from China's history. This was the subject of much recent controversy and was censored by the authorities.

The Tasmanian School of Art in collaboration with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery have created an exhibition focused on the phenomenon of the solo survey, using the work of Vivienne Binns to open a space for conversation about the personal aspirations of the artist and the broader role of curator and institution. Through the complex layering of this exhibition the artist and curator entice the viewer to engage more directly with the trials and joys of the artist's struggle. By engaging a museum-style presentation, Vivienne Binns becomes a contextual display marking milestones, thoughts, actions, protests, interactions, people, places, discisions and emotional responses that accumulate to give meaning to current choices.